Enhancing NATO Counter Hybrid Threats Strategies with Gender Analysis

This project strengthens the capacity of NATO allies and partners to recognise and counter the weaponisation of gender and identity within hybrid threats.

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Introduction

This project examines how adversarial actors weaponise gender and identity as part of hybrid threat strategies aimed at weakening social cohesion, trust in institutions, democratic resilience, and collective defence. The project aims to develop practical tools and policy guidance to enhance understanding and response capacity among NATO allies and partners.

Led by RUSI’s Terrorism and Conflict team, it sits within the Institute’s wider body of research on state threats, hybrid warfare, and influence operations, which examines how malign actors exploit societal vulnerabilities across informational, technological, and political domains.

Through targeted research, stakeholder consultation, and international engagement, the project will produce an analytical toolkit and policy brief to support governments and institutions in identifying, assessing, and mitigating gendered hybrid threats. The work also contributes to international dialogues, including within NATO and other multilateral frameworks, strengthening resilience against identity-based manipulation and polarisation as part of reorienting the Women, Peace and Security agenda to provide forward-looking strategic security support.

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Aims and objectives

This project aims to build an understanding and practical capacity amongst NATO allies and partners to identify and respond to hybrid threats involving the weaponisation of gender and identity. Adversarial actors increasingly exploit gendered narratives, such as anti-gender, anti-LGBTQI+, or 'traditional values' discourses, to sow division, distort information ecosystems, and undermine public confidence in democratic systems. However, such tactics often fall outside traditional security analysis.

The project seeks to close this gap by:

Developing a gender-sensitive analytical framework that provides actionable guidance for identifying, assessing, and countering gendered and identity-based threats across NATO's hybrid warfare categories, from disinformation and technology to diplomacy and lawfare.
Producing a policy brief exploring implications for NATO policy, situating gendered hybrid threats within existing hybrid threat frameworks and the Women, Peace and Security agenda.
Fostering international engagement and awareness, working with partners to promote a shared understanding of gendered hybrid threats as core national security concerns.

By combining research, analysis, and targeted outreach, the project aims to contribute to more inclusive, adaptive, and resilient responses to the evolving hybrid threat landscape.

The ‘So What’ for Security?

Gender and identity analysis of hybrid threats reveals impacts on both human and state security in the following ways:

Human Security

Individual and group security is disrupted. This occurs on and offline, with emotional and psychological trauma, physical violence and silencing of individuals and communities.
Hybrid threats can amplify gender and identity-based hate existing in societies and increase inequalities. Harms are commonly disproportionately high for already marginalised communities.

State Security

Authoritarian adversaries seek to polarise societies, weaken democracies, challenge the legitimacy of state institutions and roll back multilateral cooperation.
Hybrid threats are often designed to reduce diversity, shrinking the talent pool for democratic leadership.
National security is compromised with incitement of violence (e.g., protests/riots, etc.). These threats draw on resources, can impact the economy, reduce resilience and create vulnerability to adversary attacks.

Who is this Work For?

Utilising the gender and identity analysis framework and its accompanying aid-memoire for mission analysis, NATO Allies and partners will be better equipped to ensure planning adheres to an audience-centric approach that places people at the centre of security solutions. Gender and identity dynamics of hybrid threats should be factored into planning, policy and training across NATO military structures, as well as across NATO operations and exercises.

Here are some examples of how this work is relevant for specific NATO staff: